Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers thrust the gender gap into the limelight when he suggested “innate differences” could be behind the dearth of women in science and engineering positions. Here are more likely culprits:
While Summers’ suggestion (he has since recanted and apologized) struck many as backward thinking (there is scant proof that men’s brains are more or less suited for certain intellectual pursuits), it did force us to think about the real factors behind the lack of women scientists and engineers. For instance, a recent BusinessWeek article points out that there’s a bias against women in the field. Studies show that science papers are evaluated more unfavorably when they’re apparently authored by women. The deep-rooted belief that women will not fare as well is self-fulfilling, and this expectation is the main reason for the gender gap in science, says a letter written by Stanford consulting associate professor of mechanical engineering Carol Muller in response to Summers’ comments and signed by over 100 scientists and academicians.
Another reason–suggested by Summers himself–is that science and engineering are hardly family-friendly careers. Their punishing workload can be a deal-breaker for women who want to raise children. In fact, to address this issue, Summers has promised to attract more women to Harvard’s faculty by offering incentives such as longer leave, improved child care, and better tenure timeframes.
There’s also a larger issue at work–declining interest in scientific pursuits. Science is becoming a tougher sell for both girls and boys. In fact, the U.S. lags behind 13 other countries in the percentage of math- or science-degree-holding 24-year-olds. “We have to change our culture to one that believes that it’s really important to have a population that is well-educated in math and science,” says Maria Klawe, dean of Princeton University’s engineering school.
It’s important to note that girls and boys almost evenly split science and engineering undergraduate degrees, says a recent BusinessWeek article, with girls accounting for about 47.1% of all such degrees handed out in the U.S. in 2000. The disparity rears its head after college–with 994,400 women employed by industry in science and engineering in 2000, compared to 3.1 million men, according to the National Science Foundation. “We can’t afford not to encourage women,” Janie M. Fouke, dean of the College of Engineering at Michigan State University, tells BusinessWeek. “Half the brightest minds in the country aren’t at the table.” And U.S. competitiveness will suffer as a result.
Sources:
Commentary: Getting Girls To The Lab Bench
Catherine Arnst
BusinessWeek, February 7, 2005
www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/05_06/b3919066_mz011.htm?chan=tc&
Are Women Not Wired for Science?
Lauren Gold
Mechanical Engineering Breaking News, January 24, 2005
www.memagazine.org/Headlines.html?start=1&numhl=7&category=Engineering&ID=asme&scategory=Engineering
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Of course Summers recanted and apologized….after having been verbally castrated by the shock troops of the politically correct crowd, and he having little of the required backbone for properly blowing them off. Although some may view Summers’ thinking as backward, many others would more accurately call it truthful, however unpalatable it may taste to some. Whatever other reasons there may be for gender divisions, differences in male/female brain wiring have sufficient substance that a flippant “backward thinking” remark will be no more that a disingenuous pseudo-argument.
This article really needs more statisical data.
To use a single year of graduation data to show that there is a disparity problem with men and women in industry and not use at least 30 years of college data along with the numbers that show how many women drop out of industry after so many year. (In my personal observation, I have watched scores of women drop out of industry because of family issues. Almost no men.)